


every demon wants his pound of flesh

by amosanguis



Series: Sherlock and Mycroft, Smaug and Scatha [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Dragons Sleep A Lot, Gen, Mycroft is Scatha, Playing Fast and Loose with Tolkien Mythology, Prequel, Protective!Mycroft, Sherlock is Smaug, The Holmes boys are dragons, dragons are still dragons and they will fuck your shit up, title from a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Scatha leaned in close, let Smaug put his tiny claws against his muzzle.  And the little dragon warbled out a roar and hiccupped a puff of smoke.</p><p>Prequel to "i am done with my graceless heart"</p>
            </blockquote>





	every demon wants his pound of flesh

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Shake It Out" by Florence + The Machine
> 
> Scatha and Smaug live in the Grey Mountains

-z-

 

Scatha was there when his little brother, to be named Smaug, hatched.  Scatha was young by dragon’s standards, barely two centuries old, and he watched with muted awe as Smaug clambered from his egg.

And Smaug stared up at his older brother before he jerkily made his way over to him.  And Scatha leaned in close, let Smaug put his tiny claws against his muzzle.  And the little dragon warbled out a roar and hiccupped a puff of smoke.

And Scatha chuckled a rumbling laugh that shook his hoard.  A hoard that he had stolen from the Éothéod and steadily added to over the years.  And while it was the gold that the men came for, it was Smaug that Scatha was protecting, that he was hiding in the largest of the golden hills.

 

-x-

 

Their mother visited their minds often, she had left Scatha to tend to her youngest because her hoard had been close to a city of men and she was constantly at war.

 

-x-

 

In a decade, Smaug learned speech – something that had taken Scatha two decades to do.  And he had grinned proudly and pulled Smaug close and tickled him (carefully) with his long claws.

They would pass their days rolling in the gold, fighting and arguing, and telling riddles that grew ever more complicated.

And Scatha fed Smaug’s intellect, taught him how to _see_ what he was looking at, how to observe and deduce.  He taught him about the creatures of their world, how to track and how to attack a city.  He spun fantastical tales of burning cities and men who would be heroes.

 

-x-

 

It was when Smaug was nearly sixty years old that Fram and his armies stormed the mountain, seeking the return of his family’s treasures.  Fram had sent in one of his own brothers to check to see if the dragon was still there.

The brothers had been sleeping, planning to spend the next few years sleeping so that Smaug could grow.  And it was Smaug who had heard the _clink clinking_ of the gold being walked over.  He had thought it was Scatha, awake early.

 _I’m going to surprise him!  He can’t sneak up on me!_ Smaug grinned to himself and waited for the steps to get closer – and when he lept from the gold he had buried himself beneath – and he came face-to-face with a creature that walked on two legs.  And Smaug recognized him as a man.

“You’re bigger than I thought you would be,” Smaug said.  He had only heard descriptions of men from Scatha, so Smaug supposed that they would have been small in his brother’s eyes.  But to him, they were nearly as big as he was.

The man said nothing, but there was a grin and then he was pulling a sword from its sheathe and then he gave a wild cry and charged.

 And then there was a flash of pain as the sword sliced into Smaug’s wing and the young dragon roared as he tried to fly back.

“Scatha!” he shouted, pain in voice.

And then his brother was awake and the mountain trembled with his fury as he burst from the gold and picked the man up between his teeth.  The man screamed, but the scream turned into a gargling as he was quickly crushed, his flimsy metal armor cracking and bending to Scatha’s fangs.

Scatha spat the man away and with a few whispered words of magic, tended to his brother’s wing.  And then he roared again for now the scent of men was thick inside the mountain.  So he turned back to Smaug.

“Stay close,” Scatha ordered as he flew up one of their tunnels, “Stay above me, the men will be below and they’ll have more swords and spears and arrows.  You’re scales have yet to harden so you’ll be vulnerable.

“When we get to the open air – fly has high as you can and get out of here,” and then they were in the air and Smaug could hear the roar of an army below them.  And then Scatha was pushing him away, “I’ll find you, Smaug, just get out of here!”

And it was instinct, instinct to listen to the command in his brother’s voice – so he did as he was told.  He flew high and fast.

Smaug flew until he couldn’t fly anymore. 

So he found a small mountain cave and landed tiredly and looked back in the direction he came from.  He kept his eyes on the skies and he waited.

Days passed until finally, in the sky Smaug recognized his brother’s silver-blue scales reflecting in the sun.

“Scatha!” Smaug cried out.  “What happened to the mountain?”

“Let them keep it,” Scatha snorted as he landed by the cave Smaug had been holed up in.  “While gold is precious to us, it’s no use dying over it – remember that Smaug.  You can take gold from men and dwarves, and it can be taken back.  And while it is a curse for our species to lust for gold above all other things, I strive to not let it rule my head.

“And neither should you,” Scatha settled himself wearily, only half-fitting into the cave that had been housing his brother, “rule yourself, Smaug; do not be consumed with something as simple as a trinket.”

And Smaug took his brother’s words to heart as he nodded and crawled over and leaned heavily against his brother’s muzzle, happy that his brother was back.

 

-x-

 

There came a time when eventually their mother stopped answer their calls.  Scatha told Smaug it was because she was busy and Smaug pretended to believe him. 

But the truth was she had relinquished her hold on them.  And they would not speak to her again for almost seven hundred years – when men had a firm grasp over the entire world and their cities reached up and touched the skies.

 

-x-

 

In a century, Smaug was almost as large as Scatha. 

But where Scatha’s scales were silver-blue, Smaug’s were red-gold; where Scatha controlled ice and snow and wind, Smaug controlled fire and earth.  Scatha was patient where Smaug was not, Scatha was quiet while Smaug roared and demanded his brother’s attentions.

And as the years passed, there were whispers brought to them by the birds about the Dwarves to the south who had found a jewel of pure light, who had accumulated the largest of hoards.

“What do you think, brother?” Scatha asked, giving Smaug a side-long look.  “Ready to get a hoard of your own?”

Smaug chuckled, dug his claws into the gold that Scatha had recently stolen (again) from the descendants of Fram (who had been mightily surprised to even see Scatha alive).

“I think I’ll give it a shot,” Smaug grinned as he made his way to the exit.

“Make sure to destroy the wind lances first, brother.  Only arrows shot from such contraptions can pierce our scales.”

“Aye, brother,” and then Smaug was off.

And, when the wind carried on it the scent of death and destruction, of blood and smoke, Scatha rolled onto his back and laughed.  And he listened as the screaming faded into silence, as dwarves and men ran and hid and the elves did nothing.

“Good job, Smaug,” Scatha roared and then he was diving into his gold and he closed his eyes and he slept.

 

-x-

 

Scatha jerked awake to his brother’s screaming.  And then he was flying out of his mountain and rushing towards Erebor.

He arrived just as Smaug was flying into the air, spinning around with molten gold flying from his scales.  And Scatha roared in fury as he caught up with his brother.

“Lake Town!” Smaug shouted as he continued to fly.  “I’ll show those nasty little dwarves!”

Together, the two of them took the town.  And at the very last second, Scatha saw the man at the wind lance.

“I told you to destroy all of these things!” Scatha shouted as he swerved in low, his long claws spearing through the lance before the arrow could be fired.  The man who had been about to fire the arrow fell away and Scatha didn’t even bother to see what happened to him.

Then the two of them pulled up into the air and watched as Lake Town burned.

“Back to the mountain?” Scatha asked.

“No,” Smaug said as he turned back to their own Grey Mountains, “let the Arkenstone poison Oakenshield.  Its whispers will drive him to madness.”

“That’s what happens when the Dwarves dig down too deep,” Scatha said, disgust and contempt thick in his voice.  “They believe that they can just help themselves to the mountain’s heart and survive it.”

“I didn’t know you were so poetic, Scatha,” Smaug grinned.

“I am being truthful,” the older dragon replied, watching as the Lonely Mountain passed below them.  “There are things buried deep inside the mountains, some things are a mountain’s heart made into jewels, some are a mountain’s anger made into demons of fire and rock.”

Smaug gave his brother an appraising look but said nothing.

“I miss _my_ gold,” Smaug pouted once they had returned to Scatha’s own mountain.

“You can sleep here or you can sleep in an empty cave,” Scatha snapped, “it is only because you are my brother that you’re even allowed to _look_ at my hoard.”

“Thank you, brother,” Smaug bowed deeply, but he curled up next to Scatha anyway.  “Oh, before you sleep, I must tell about this little thief who came to see me!”

 

-x-

 

By the time he was nearing four hundred years old (and Scatha had lost and reclaimed his hoard several times over, currently celebrating the latter), Smaug had learned to shift into the form of men.

Scatha’s lip had curled up in disgust when Smaug had shown him.

“You look ridiculous,” Scatha sneered.

“Yes,” Smaug agreed as he wobbled, trying to flick his tail out for balance only to realize that he didn’t have one.  “And I feel ridiculous – but I want to learn more, perhaps perform a few experiments, but let’s face it, the locals would have a fit if they saw us flying down from the skies.”

“I miss your bloodthirsty days,” Scatha sighed as he stood and stretched.

“Just because I want to learn more about them doesn’t mean I’ll be any less inclined to burn them all,” Smaug said with a sniff.  “Besides, I want to know where everyone has gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something in the air, Scatha,” Smaug said as he looked down at his human hands, alternating between lengthening and shortening his nails.  “The Elves have disappeared since the War of the Ring and the Dwarves are not far behind.”

“It is the Age of Men, brother.”

Smaug snorted in derision and picked his way out of his brother’s lair.

 

-x-

 

It would a few more years before Scatha put on his own disguise and ventured into the world of Men.

And as time went by, the brothers noted that their kind was slowly being forgotten, that dragons and dwarves and elves and wizards and hobbits were passing from men’s memories and into myths and legends.

And it suited them fine.  For if men forgot them, then they could live quietly amongst their gold.

So Smaug and Scatha went back to their mountain and buried themselves in their treasures and they slept.

And years passed into decades, and decades passed into centuries.

And when they finally awoke, it was to the sounds of the Industrial Revolution.

 

-z-

 

End.

**Author's Note:**

> For key and Not_A_Psychopath who wanted a prequel and a sequel. Hope you two enjoy it :)


End file.
